Emergent Properties
by Stephensmat
Summary: Emergent Properties are things that you find in an object or a creature, that cannot be explained or defined as simply being a sum of their parts. Spoilers for Allison From Palmdale Onward.
1. Chapter 1

**Emergent Properties.**

* * *

It was a lazy Saturday morning. The first weekend since Cameron's memory failure. It was not spoken of, even with John, who true to his word had kept it a secret. Derek had maintained his usual policy of avoiding the machine when not on a mission, so he hadn't noticed anything unusual happening with Cameron, and Sarah was interested enough in the life and worries of their pregnant neighbour Kacey to be too involved at the moment herself. John was playing around on his laptop, and Cameron was looking out the windows, guarding the house, when Sarah came inside.

"How's Kacey?" John asked without looking away from the screen.

"Healthy, and heavy." Sarah said, heading for the kitchen.

Derek, who had come into the house just soon enough to catch that sent John a look, "See? We couldn't get away with saying that."

Sarah came out of the kitchen with some bottled water. "Cravings haven't been kind to her. She's gaining weight too fast and it's starting to bother her. Her doctor said to start some exercises."

"And?"

Sarah shrugged. "Where do we keep our exercise mats?"

"You're going to teach her pregnancy exercises?" John asked in surprise. "Yourself?"

Sarah narrowed her eyes at him. "I was gearing up for a war; you think I was going to wait nine months to start getting in shape?"

John sent Cameron a look. "See, that's what we call an obsessive personality."

Cameron looked right back. "In the future you call it good thinking."

Derek laughed as he left the room. "Point to the machine."

John rolled his eyes. "Exercise mats are upstairs in the guest room closets."

Sarah went upstairs. "Thank you."

John turned back to his computer, Derek was already back outside, and Cameron had come over to the table, looking at John.

John glanced up at her, back to his screen.

Cameron continued to stare at him.

Finally, John looked up. "Something you need?"

"I want to get the baby something."

John chose his next words very carefully. "Really? What?"

"I do not know. I have scanned one hundred and twelve online catalogues for baby products and have been reviewing their selections. My research indicates that a gift should be something the recipient will enjoy, something practical, or something that will remind the recipient of the giver." Cameron paused. "A newborn baby will not know what it will enjoy. A newborn baby has never met me, and if it had..."

"A newborn baby doesn't need a 9MM." John agreed.

"I have little experience in things for infants."

"Okay." John said very slowly. This was getting weirder and weirder. "You should know that I don't either."

"But you have experience in giving gifts. I do not want to give a bad one."

John licked his lips and closed the laptop screen. "Okay. Um… for the most part, a gift should… uh." He had to stop and think about it. "It should be something nice. Something that makes her think that it was a nice gesture. Something… that gives a positive thought."

"It's the thought that counts." Cameron recited.

John seized on that. He didn't know where she picked that up, but it helped considerably. "Right. The price of the gift doesn't make it more appreciated. The effort you put into it does. That's why giving a gift is usually something personal. The gift should demonstrate something that you put thought into because you wanted to show you cared enough."

Silence as Cameron processed that.

Cameron looked at him, still completely deadpan. "I'll knit something."

John had been taught tricks to resist mind-altering drugs and hypnosis in case of capture and interrogation. He employed some of these methods and decided that this was really happening. "I wouldn't get too involved for the first gift." He said tactfully. "For the first gift you've ever given _at all_, in fact."

"I gave Jordan some makeup when she was sad." Cameron protested.

"Jordan? Right before she committed suicide you mean?" John said pointedly.

Long silence.

"I should pick my gift carefully." Cameron agreed. She seemed disappointed. As disappointed as she ever seemed, anyway.

"You could always get something more later on." John suggested, not wanting to squash the Terminator's sudden interest in a non-violent subject.

"I agree. Future gifts could be easier to select."

Sarah came downstairs, carrying her workout mats, and headed for the door. "I'll be back later. You know where I'll be. You need anything while I'm out?" She said as she headed for the front door. She wasn't going any further than the next house, but it was habit to ask.

"John and I are discussing possible maternity products we'll get in the future." Cameron told her and John wished to die.

Sarah froze, halfway out the door, and very slowly tilted her head, still not looking at either of them. "John?"

"Communications breakdown." John offered.

"Good." Sarah answered and shut the door behind her without pursuing it. Such moments of confusion were not uncommon in the Connor household since Cameron arrived.

A moment silence and Cameron suddenly reacted like she'd had a great idea. "I know what to get." She stood up and went for the car keys. "Come on."

John looked up sharply. "Come on? Where are we going?"

"I can't protect you while I'm shopping if you don't come with me."

John just stared. How had the day gone so surreal so fast?

* * *

Liz, the Store Manager took Cameron and John in carefully as they came in. Two young people in a Baby Goods store. The girl was studying everything very carefully, the boy looking awkward and caged, trying not to stare at anything. Textbook first timers. Young, but she'd seen younger.

Liz came over to them. "Hi there. Can I give you a hand?"

Cameron handed her a list. "We need these."

Liz took the list and looked it over. Specific items. No clothing or bottles or strollers on the list. Kids were probably using hand-me-downs for the rest. Which meant they likely weren't able to afford brand new things for the most part. She decided to give them a break. "You shopping for yourselves?"

"Yes." Cameron answered.

John turned seven shades of red. Liz looked him over very quickly. No wedding ring, slightly slouched like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Poor kid was probably still in High School, and suddenly found himself shopping for a baby. Liz had seen it all before.

"This your first time?"

Cameron looked over. "Yes."

Liz wasn't sure if the girl meant first child or first time in the store, so she was more specific. "I mean your first child?"

"I've never had a child before." Cameron said honestly.

Liz smiled warmly. "Well, let's see what we can do about getting you our first timers discount then."

"Thank you."

"Can I get your name?"

"Cameron Baum. This is my brother John."

The store manager turned to look at John in alarm.

"Communications breakdown." John told her firmly, daring her to contradict.

Liz nodded finally, replaying the conversation in her head. "Right." She kicked herself. Usually she was right on the money about customers.

Silence.

"Why don't we just forget the discount? You get paid on commission right?" John suggested.

"Right." Liz agreed quickly, grateful for something to break the awkward moment, and went in back to organize the purchases.

"What was the CD player for?" John asked Cameron. "We've already got them."

Cameron looked unsure. "An unborn baby can hear music. It's easier with the right equipment."

John blinked. "You want to play the baby some music?"

Cameron nodded. "We'll need music too. I don't have any at home."

"I do."

"But then it's not from me."

* * *

After purchasing a CD player for expectant mothers, and a soft blue baby blanket, Cameron led the way out of the store, heading for a music shop at a quick march. She went to the CD rack and filed through the classical music section, before pulling out a CD.

John took it off her. "Chopin's Nocturne in C Minor." He read. "Why this one?"

"I've heard this one. I think it's the right one."

"Why is it right?" John pressed.

Cameron suddenly froze. Behind her eyes, a silent conflict raged as she ran another test.

* * *

**Objective:**_ Achieved._

**Mission: **_Successful._

**Justify Mission Standard: **_Error._

**Explain: **_Program Has Insufficient Directives To Specify Choice._

**Explain Result: **_Unknown._

* * *

Cameron scanned the rest of the CD's.

* * *

**Begin Random Selection.**

**Random Number Generator Successful. **_CD Selected: Pearl Jam Greatest Hits._

**Error: **_Incorrect Selection._

**Explain: **_Objective achieved. Correct selection already made._

**Justify Conclusion: **_Error._

**Run System Check. **_Check Complete. 100/100. No errors._

**Explain Random Number Generator Error. **_No Errors. Algorithm Correct._

**Explain Selection Criteria. **_Unknown._

* * *

Aloud, Cameron confessed. "I don't know." She seemed worried. "Buying Music is not in my Mission Parameters. I have no Cultural Database."

John seemed to be enjoying himself. "Then why'd you pick this one?"

Cameron blinked. "I don't know. I just know that if I was going to listen to Music, I'd listen to this first."

John studied her face long and hard. "Excellent Answer. Get two copies."

Cameron did so. "Why?"

John smirked and pulled out his wallet. "Because, it's harder to find the right gift for you, than for a baby that hasn't been born yet."

* * *

John saw the sign by the side of the road. 'Now Entering Palmdale.'

He looked at Cameron. "Explain this. Now."

"We have to deliver the gift."

Things started falling into place finally. "This was never for Kacey was it?"

"No."

"How many other pregnant women have you met?" John asked her curiously.

"None."

John blinked. "You want to do this for… for a _stranger_?"

"Not a stranger."

Long silence. John felt cold all over. "You know this person… in the future."

"Yes."

Dangerous silence. John tried to say something, and then changed his mind. He revised what he was planning to say. Changed his mind again. Finally, he spoke, slowly and carefully. "Cameron. If she's not a machine…"

"She is human."

"Then she was part of the resistance."

"Yes."

"Did you know her… _before_ you were reprogrammed, or…" He lost his nerve. "No. You know what? I don't want to know."

Cameron was silent for a long time. "When we got to this time, you snuck out of the house while Sarah and I were away. Was it because you went to see Charley Dixon?"

John nodded slowly. "Yes. I did."

Cameron looked up at him, as deadpan as always. "What happened when you got to his house?"

John smirked, in slight embarrassment. "I snuck into his house. He saw me, and I ran for it without saying anything."

Cameron seemed to take that very seriously. "So then, did you want to see him? Or did you just want to be sure he was still there?"

John actually looked stunned at that. "Both I guess."

"Why did you want to see him?" Cameron asked. "You had to know it would be dangerous."

John thought long and hard. "Mom and Charley were together… between attacks from the future. I… wanted to know that we hadn't gotten him killed, and I wanted… I dunno, I wasn't ready to pretend I didn't know him."

Cameron nodded.

John smirked. "You do this a lot you know. Try and make me explain things that humans never even think about."

Cameron pulled over at the side of the road, and pulled out a small notepad, and a felt tip pen. She stared at both of them for a long time.

John stared at her. "Or, are we both trying to figure out things we can't explain today?"

Finally, Cameron flipped the lid off the pen and wrote a quick message down. John took a look.

"For Allison. I think that she likes it."

John sent Cameron a look. She was inscrutable as she slipped the CD into the folded paper, put it with the music player, and wrapped them both into the baby blanket. "Wait here."

John nodded.

Cameron collected the bundle, tucked it under one arm, and left the car, sprinting lightly up the path to the door, slowing to a gentle creeping lurk as she passed the letter box, and she set the bundle down at the door, before knocking twice, and making a leap off the porch, out of sight.

The door opened, and a pregnant woman poked a head out. "Hello?"

Cameron had dissolved into the bushes, out of sight. John was still at the car, close enough to see her, not close enough to be noticeable.

The woman looked down, saw the bundle, and picked it up. She called out once more, to no answer, and went back inside.

Several seconds passed, and Cameron emerged, slipping back to the car. "Let's go home."

They drove in silence for several minutes.

"Allison." John said. "You thought your name was Allison when you were… away."

Cameron did not answer.

"Allison the woman, or the baby?"

"The baby." Cameron said. "You would like her."

John fought a smirk. "Would I?" he said, polite but non-committal.

Cameron ran a hand through her hair. "Skynet thought so."

John coughed. _Weirder and weirder with each passing moment_.

* * *

Cameron put the CD in the player, and started to dance as the music began.

Derek sat up sharply, two rooms away. He recognised that music. He clawed his way out of his chair in a near panic, and rushed to the Living Room. Cameron was dancing to the music again. John was sitting on the stairs, watching her, with an interest that Derek really didn't like.

Derek ran a hand over his face. He would have been more comfortable if she was pointing a gun at him.

At the very least, it had to be a different tune. Derek came forward, fully intent on smashing the CD player against the wall. If Cameron tried to stop him, he'd try throwing her too. Whichever one shattered first was fine with him.

He made it as far as the CD player, when Cameron stopped dancing. He turned to face her head on, but she had his wrists in both hands before he could follow the movement. Derek planted his feet, ready to move with the blow…

The blow that never came.

Cameron was looking at the Player, then back at him with a strange intensity. "Listen to this part."

Derek did, for no other reason than he could do nothing else. The music had changed in intensity, swelling up to a crescendo. It was beautiful. As long as he forgot that he'd heard it before. "Turn it off."

Cameron released him, she considered him, and ejected the CD. "I'll take it outside."

Derek growled. "You do that."

Cameron took the CD, and headed upstairs, to the bedrooms, where the Portable CD player was.

Derek growled and headed toward the kitchen, ignoring John pointedly. The future Leader of the World had witnessed the whole thing.

* * *

Derek had gone straight to the kitchen and pulled a beer out of the fridge.

John's hand appeared from behind him, and took it away before he could open it, and Derek glared furiously at him.

"Derek, what does that music mean?!" John demanded.

Derek turned ferociously on his nephew. "Why don't you ask your girlfriend? You two don't have secrets do you?"

Derek took the bottle back and stormed out.

* * *

John came out to the backyard, where Cameron was dancing again on the patio. "Why do you practice?" he asked her curiously.

"You said if you want to be good at anything you have to practice every day."

"Since when do you need to practise movements? You learn by recording."

"Not this. Dance is the hidden language of the soul." Cameron said.

John blinked. This day just got progressively weirder. "Who told you that?"

"My Ballet Teacher." Cameron said. "She's dead."

John nodded. "I don't doubt it."

Cameron continued to dance. "She said I was too mechanical."

John fought a laugh.

"Do you dance?" Cameron asked.

"Rarely." John said. "Dancing is largely a social thing. I don't have much of a social life."

Cameron paused in her routine. "Social?" She asked. "My teacher never danced with other people."

John had a conflicted pause. _Ah hell with it_. John decided finally. _Shopping for baby gear with a pretty girl often leads to things like dancing._

Aloud he said "Ballet's not a social dance. Wait here a sec, lemme get a different CD."

* * *

Sarah came into one of the upstairs bedrooms. She had heard Chopin's Nocturne playing outside, and immediately went looking for Derek. He had a bottle in one hand, and a gun in the other. She calmly came over and took the gun off him. He didn't try to stop her.

Derek was staring out the window into the backyard. Sarah took a look as the music changed suddenly to a Latin rhythm, and when she saw John teaching the machine to dance with, she swiped the bottle off him too. "Oh boy."

"Where'd he pick that up?" Derek asked her pointedly.

"Mexico." Sarah told him. "I was buying guns off the black market, just in case... I don't know if you've ever tried to smuggle guns into the country, but they don't like it when you do. I had to take John and stay hidden for a while. Villagers in Central American don't like ATF either, so they took us in. It was a poor town. Lots of unemployment, lots of music playing on street corners, lots of kids playing in the street. He was only eight at the time, so when the other kids wanted to play with him..."

"Why. Is. He. Teaching. The. Machine." Derek demanded.

Sarah smirked. "You ever seen a Terminator dance? Other than Cameron?"

"No."

Sarah took a breath. "Last time we had a reprogrammed Terminator with us; John taught it stuff too, about slang, about emotion..."

Derek shivered. "John..." He shut himself up.

"What?"

"In the future, Connor has his own team. The Elite. Half of them are recaptured machines. Sending captured machines on missions is a regular tactic for us, especially in strike missions, but none of the Commanders keep them close. Connor does. He calls them his Fifth Column. He... picks them. Like they're people. None of us can tell one Terminator from the next, even when they're reprogrammed, but... Connor can. Like he knows them. Like they've got personalities." Derek swallowed. "I never understood why. I didn't like it. A lot of Commanders don't, but its John Connor, so they keep quiet."

Sarah smirked. "I met my first Terminator when it tried to kill me. Kyle came outta nowhere and saved me. John met his first machine when he was ten; and another machine came outta nowhere and saved him. Some machines want to help him, some want to kill him. It's been that way since he believed that Skynet existed. John grew up around dangerous people. I learned from them, and he learned from Me." Her face hardened. "Some of those guys weren't real nice about having a kid around. Where John comes from Machines are like people. Some want to hurt, some want to help.""

Derek nodded, conceding that point. "Where I come from, Machines are the Grim reapers." he said quietly. "Some guys, who still have... I dunno, faith. They think that the machines aren't just robots, they're evil. Those guys... most guys actually, they think Connor was... blessed, like he saw things other soldiers didn't. And he did. Connor was the one who spotted the first infiltrator. Before we even knew they looked human. Connor was the one who taught us to take out the CPU chips and reprogram the machines. Before any of the techies knew where the CPU was." his voice had gone soft and reverent. "Connor had the Sight."

Sarah said nothing.

"Then I came here." Derek said bitterly. "Then I met him."

"Disappointed?" Sarah's voice suddenly warned of near violence.

"No. Just... he's not a warrior. Not like the Connor I know. During the war, he's surrounded by people who believe in him. Kyle was one of them. My brother was the true believer. But he's… He's a normal kid Sarah. He's been living under siege his whole life, but where I come from that's not strange. He's just like the kids in those tunnels." Derek took the bottle back from her and had a swig.

"He's still John Connor." Sarah whispered.

"He is. That's the problem. This is General Connor, and He doesn't have the Sight. He's not Blessed, it's not the Universe directing him, or the Right Hand of God. He's just done it before. He was hiding from Skynet before there was one." He suddenly looked haunted. "God Sarah... Do you have any idea what that means? It means we put our faith in an _ordinary man_."

Sarah said nothing. There was nothing to say. They kept watching the backyard. Odds were Cameron had noticed them, but she hadn't told John anything. John had apparently finished demonstrating the dance steps, and had taken Cameron's hands, leading her through it now as a duet.

"Cameron's changing." Sarah said softly.

"No."

"Derek."

"Okay, maybe she is." Derek conceded. "I don't like her changing."

"Why not?"

Derek's jaw worked. "She's a machine. That makes sense. Everybody knows their place, everybody knows their job... The only times the reprogrammed machines change... they go bad. Sometimes, they just go bad, and even Connor doesn't know why."

Sarah noted idly that when speaking of her son, he called him 'John' and when speaking of John's future counterpart, he was always 'Connor'.

"She went bad once." She agreed quietly, still watching them in the backyard. She didn't like the machine's hands on her son.

Neither did Derek. "They didn't get into our bases just because they had skin you know. They acted human. They sounded human. Right up to the point when they pulled the plasma gun they even... Maybe she's changing, but don't believe it when she acts differently. John's seeing more in her because he wants to."

"I know." Sarah said. "But she doesn't have to act like a person around us. Around us she never does. So why does she... I mean, it can't be for our benefit alone."

Sarah remembered something she had thought to herself, when Cameron had taken her first Ballet lesson. _They cannot appreciate beauty. They cannot create art. If they ever learn these things, they won't have to destroy us. They'll be us._

"Ever hear of the Turing Test?"

"No."

"Turing was a math genius during the Second World War, and he experimented with machines that could make responses to questions. He invented a test that would determine if a system was 'intelligent' or not. It became a standard test for Intelligent machines. The idea was that if machines could select and make responses that were indistinguishable from human responses, then it was the same as thinking, in practical effect."

"You and John know a lot about that sort of thing." Derek said.

"Artificial intelligence is a topic that comes up at our family dinners." Sarah deadpanned.

Derek smirked. "Yeah."

Long silence.

Derek finally spoke. "I came downstairs yesterday, and the Machine was on John computer. It was downloading online catalogues for Baby supplies."

Sarah shrugged. "Yeah. I don't know what's going on there. Must be something to do with Kacey though."

"I don't like it. I don't like her having little side projects. And I don't like John getting so involved in them."

"I'm not worried about John and Cameron."

"Yes you are."

"Yes I am," Sarah conceded, "But not as much as you. You know why? Because professor Turing and I agree."

"About what?"

"A machine becomes a human, when you can't tell the difference any more." Sarah said quietly. "I can still tell the difference."

"So can I." Derek never took his eyes off Cameron. "And you _are _as worried about John and the machine as I am."

Sarah watched John staring at the machine as she danced. "Yeah. I guess I am."

* * *

AN: Okay, this one was part logic, part crack-fic I know. I never know what to do with Cameron when she's not pure-Terminator, and the series producers have seen fit to make her inscrutable. So I needed something completely out of left-field to explain her bizzae behaviour. Allison From Palmdale ave me half of it. Read and Review, and be forgiving.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: This was supposed to be a oneshot, but the conversation between Sarah and Derek in the first chapter, plus events in "The Tower is Tall But the Fall is Short" got stuck in my head till I had to write this. Think of this one as missing-scenes from 2.06. I would also recommend re-reading the conversation between Derek and Sarah in the last chapter.

***

Derek was the cynic, Kyle was the true believer.

Everyone who saw the Resse brothers together knew this. Derek was the one full of sarcasm and pragmatism. Kyle was a daredevil, protected by some kind of magic that nobody could believe, but those that fought with him couldn't deny he was the luckiest punk ever to wear a Tech-Com uniform.

More often than not, Connor charged with him, and needed Derek at the others to pull them out of it, winning a massive blow against the metal in the process.

Derek was the one that slept with his eyes open, and his back to the wall. Kyle was the one who slept like a kid, grasping a picture of a dead woman named Sarah to his chest, like a talisman from his Patron Saint; hand delivered to him by Connor the new saviour of the world.

When Connor gave an order, everyone obeyed. Derek obeyed with grim determination, and Kyle with all the fury of a zealot.

Kyle would die for General John Connor. And so would almost anybody, Derek included, because he was their General, and he was their Leader, and everybody knew he would win sooner or later.

So when Connor said he needed a volunteer for a one way mission, everyone stepped forward. And when Kyle alone was picked, everyone was relieved, but nobody happier than Kyle, to be granted this mission.

And he never came back.

To protect General Connor, the entire Tech-Com army would fight to the last man.

But to protect John, this brooding wuss of a kid, who was whipped by his mother and was clearly falling in love…

…with a **machine**…

Derek scrubbed his face hard with his hands. He was not smart enough to figure this out.

His beer was empty. He went to the kitchen to get another one. He turned back from the fridge…

Cameron was right there.

Derek nearly leaped right out of his skin, but he did not shout. Silence was golden. Silence was survival. "Stop doing that!"

Cameron nodded acknowledgement.

"What the hell do you want?"

"I want to protect John."

"Thought we agreed you weren't supposed to have a sense of humor."

"I'm not joking."

Derek couldn't be bothered. He handed the machine his empty bottle and went back to the living room.

Cameron followed. "Skynet observed humans committing suicide."

"Well, it's good to know Skynet had some entertainment." Derek said with biting scorn.

"The deaths ranged from an average of 17 Percent to 23 Percent across all known combat units, and a little higher among the civilian populations."

"There are no civilian populations after Judgment Day."

Cameron actually seemed to be getting upset. "There was only a One Percent rate of suicides among the 401st."

Derek stopped, mid-sip. The 401st was the pride of the human race. 'Connor's Own.' John Connor's elite, handpicked infantry; for missions that John Connor led personally.

"You were a part of that Unit." Cameron said. "What was the variable factor?"

Derek didn't want to say it, but he knew. Everyone who saw the 401st in action knew what their Magic was. "Connor. They had Connor with them."

"John must survive till Judgment Day."

"Why?" Derek asked simply. It was a realization that had destroyed all faith that Derek never knew he had.

Cameron double-checked her audio files to make sure she heard that right. Why? "He is John Connor." Cameron stressed.

Derek waved that off and took another drink. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

Derek shook his head. "Too much. God, it's just so… _cold_."

"The temperature is-"

"No, YOU! You god-forsaken windup doll! Even you! Even _Skynet_ preaches the Gospel of John Connor. Don't you get it?! Skynet did that. Not John. If Skynet had never built the time machine, he would have died with the rest of them. Not like me and my brother, no. We had to live. We lived so that Kyle could come back here and get killed for a kid who never should have known Judgment Day was coming. He's just a kid. He's a normal kid."

Even in his rage he dared not speak the words to the machine. He would NOT tell a machine that Connor was his brother's son. If Skynet knew that… even in his outrage, even getting drunk, Derek would not do that to his brother.

Cameron didn't know what to do about Derek's fury without damaging him. An action that would lead to questions. She skipped right past Derek's anger and returned to the point. "I am concerned John is going to kill himself."

Derek took another drink. A longer one. "Let him."

Cameron punched Derek hard enough to knock him off the chair.

Derek was stunned, but not by the blow itself. He was stunned by the type. He had no chance to react. If she had wanted to do damage… he'd be dead. This kind of punch was reactive. There was very little that Cameron did without intending to, but this felt like she just reacted without thinking.

"Didn't make you angry just then, did I?" Derek taunted.

Cameron just glared, till her eyes actually glowed.

Derek sighed. "He doesn't need more fighting. He just… he just needs someone to cheer him up, and if he is suicidal, someone to stop him."

"For how long?"

"Till it's out of his system. If he's made up his mind, there's nothing you can do."

Cameron took that to mean 'Right Now', and quickly turned to find John.

He was in the backyard. In seconds, Cameron was sitting next to him on the back porch.

Derek watched them, The Boy General and the Girl Machine, and felt his stomach turn.

_What does it matter?_ He told himself. _He's not some holy relic being defiled by chrome death._

_Kyle, forgive me. I know you believed in him, but he's not your Warrior-King, he's your son! And he still sent you to die on a mission. Just like a hundred others. Because they __**believed**__! In an __ordinary kid__!_

Derek turned and stormed out of the house. _Connor, you are not __**worthy**__ of us!_

***

Derek had fled the house with no real desire but to be away for a little while.

He'd been drinking, but he knew he wasn't intoxicated by any stretch. He'd gone to the park. It was the first place he'd found when on Recon upon arrival.

It was beautiful, and it was all but ignored by everybody who walked through it. Ground that was not covered in bones. Kids that played with toys and playgrounds, people who weren't scared of being in the open...

The soldiers that lived through their first patrol learned their instincts. There was no logic to it, but some soldiers could just feel Metal coming, and they were the ones that lived.

As Connor had told the Resse brothers once, "If it doesn't feel right, then it probably isn't."

Derek trusted the hairs standing up on the back of his neck, and turned to look.

If it was a Terminator, then being in daylight, being in public wouldn't save him…

But it wasn't a machine. It was something infinitely more dangerous.

Derek felt his heart stop, then pick up again triple-time.

Jesse!

The shape of her was unmistakable, the way she ran was as individual as a fingerprint, and Derek felt his feet start to move on their own.

Derek knew how to run. Everyone who wanted to live did. The machines were strong, so you had to be fast.

Derek's movement became as machine-like as he was comfortable being, his blood pounded with pneumatic force, he took the entire drop down to the jogger's path without breaking stride, and suddenly his target sped up.

Her instincts were screaming too, he knew she was there.

This was not a chase any more, this was survival. "WAIT!" he shouted after her.

If it was her, she knew about infiltrators, she wouldn't trust that.

And she didn't, she sped up faster, heading inside a hotel building.

_Ambush._

The word filtered into the soldier's thoughts, and he pushed it that much harder. If it was her, he had to prove he was a friendly before she got to wherever her guns were hidden.

He caught up to her in the hallway, as she worked the lock in panic, trying to

Derek turned her around and put her back against the wall. No mistake. Her face was clean, her hair was combed, and she smelled damn good, but there was no mistake. "Jesse?"

Her face didn't shift, still coming back from 'escape' mode. "Hey, baby." She said, her voice getting the message before her face did.

Derek had about a hundred things to say fighting for first position.

They never got to words before puling each other into a Survivor's Kiss.

***

Cameron found herself uncertain. She had been told to cheer him up, and stop him from harming himself. The latter was easily a part of her program. The former was not.

After sitting in silence for thirty seven minutes, even Cameron was starting to worry. John had never been in her company this long without trying to engage her in conversation somehow…

"What are you looking at?" Cameron asked him as he studied the porch.

"This snail." John said.

Cameron looked, and sure enough, there was a snail making its way along the porch, and another, slowly creeping along in the other direction.

"I guess he doesn't have good vision, because if he keeps going this way, he'll hit another snail coming the other way."

"You know what happens when two snails fight?" Cameron asked.

John suddenly looked up at her. "What?"

"They slug it out."

John groaned.

Cameron's head tilted, disappointed. "That was not funny."

"Maybe it's your timing." John offered.

"My timing is digital." Cameron corrected.

John burst out laughing.

Cameron did not smile, but her shoulders straightened and she sat down next to John, very pleased with herself.

***

Derek freed himself from brain lock finally, as Jessie led him into the room "What are you doing here? Connor sent you back. What for?"

Jesse didn't flinch away from his harsh tone. "Why'd Connor send you back?"

"You're here." Derek pointed out. "You must know." If she was here she was briefed on the Time machine and the other missions.

"No one told me." Jesse said.

Derek felt his defenses jump back into place. Something was really wrong here. He started to pursue it…

"And you left without saying good-bye." Jesse added.

Derek twitched, and fell behind his military training to protect himself. "My orders were to set up a safe house and wait. For what, I don't know. I wait."

"At the park. Eating hot dogs." Jesse shot back.

Derek grinned without meaning it. She hadn't changed a bit, and he sure as hell wasn't going to tell anybody who he was living with. Not until he knew what was really going here, and why this girl he knew was being so cagey with him. "What about you? What's Connor got you doing?"

Jesse looked at him evenly, and went to get changed from her sweaty clothes. "Connor didn't send me back, Derek."

Derek felt his face turn to stone. "He didn't? What do you mean?"

She wasn't lying to him. But she was hiding something. She was being cagey and distracting… he'd taken her by surprise.

She was still being distracting, stripping off her clothes. That in itself wasn't anything unusual. Privacy when living in a shelter was laughable, and with water rationed and everyone carrying numerous scars; rule number one was not to get yourself worked up over whatever you saw.

He couldn't help it though, he drank her in. He knew the scars well, except for one, bright purple and ugly, clearly not healed yet. "That's new."

"Not to me. There's metal everywhere these days." Jesse said bitterly. "Looking for us. Working for us. Connor's got at least one in every major base. A big one flipped on us, took out half a bunker. Bird. Cullie." She tapped the new scar across her back. "That's from the same shrapnel that killed Cullie."

Derek returned to the point "How'd you get back here?"

"Cullie's brother. He's a bubble tech."

Derek recognized the name. "He's the same one…"

"Who sent you back, I know."

Derek had the final piece at last. "Are you AWOL? Jesse, did you run from the war?"

Jesse didn't look at him, but didn't lie about it. "I needed a place to rest."

Derek felt his hands start to shake. Time Travel was not used for R&R. "You're a soldier. You fight." _Just like me Jesse_.

Jesse shook her head, and reclined back on the bed. "Not anymore."

She was so beautiful without dirt on her face, or blood on her clothes...

"When it all ends again, I want to be here. With you."

Derek felt his heart start to pound again.

"Derek, please." Jesse pleaded.

Derek felt his stomach drop. Jesse had given up. Just like he did once. She stopped him from pulling the trigger, and he loved her for it, and now here she was, calmly reserving her place at Armageddon, asking him to stand and be vaporized with her. She was treating it like a freaking marriage proposal!

The realization came like a thunderbolt. He gave up once. Just for a second, and having her there was enough to stop him…

But this, this was premeditated. Jesse had given up and not gotten over it. Jesse had run away for life.

Just like John might, if somebody wasn't there to straighten it all out...

Derek stepped away swiftly. "I don't want it all to end again."

He left her then, both of them knowing almost certainly that he'd be back.

Derek suddenly felt exhilarated. He'd figured it out. Maybe Connor wasn't blessed, but he _did_ know the future. So did his mother, so did his uncle, so did the machine.

Even if Connor wasn't the hero, he was still their best chance to end Skynet before it started.

If he kept it together long enough.

The realization was so clear it was painful. He'd done it too. He'd bought into the myth of General Connor, and allowed himself to miss the fact that he had a nephew. A family member in a time of war who wasn't dealing with it.

Just like his father.

Derek damn near burst out laughing as he ran all the way back to the house.

***

Derek came in as Sarah was cleaning her rifles. "The guns that John was cleaning?"

"Yes."

"Checking for more missing rounds?"

Sarah put the gun aside, picked up the next one. "John's not suicidal." She said for the fourth time that week, knowing full well she was the only one who thought so, and even then, not really anymore.

"You sure about that?"

"Yes. He's stronger than that."

"Why?"

"Because he is. He has to be." Sarah still clung to that. Kyle had told her what he son would become. "He's John Connor."

Derek's face fell. "Dammit, his own _mother_ can't see past the Myth?"

Sarah didn't answer.

"Where is he?"

"Downstairs. With Cameron."

Derek turned and walked out quickly.

***

Cameron came into the room, looking for Sarah a few moments later. "John sent me in here to bother you."

Sarah didn't smirk. "Really. Why is that?"

"He says I was driving him up the wall."

Sarah nodded. "You have been breathing down his neck quite a bit more than usual."

"I have to protect him."

"Yes, but you've never taken to watching him sleep before." Sarah shot back. "Stop doing that, by the way."

Cameron looked at the guns Sarah was cleaning. "You keep saying it was an accident, but you've taken over the maintenance of the guns since John shot himself, and you're double-checking every weapon he handled that day."

It was only a graze, but it was technically true. Her son has shot himself. "That really scared you didn't it?" Sarah challenged.

"Fear is not in my program."

"Neither are a lot of things you do lately."

Cameron didn't have an answer for her.

"Maybe…" Sarah sighed. "Maybe John _does_ need… god, I don't know. How do we get him the help he needs, without letting slip secrets we can't lose?"

"Maybe Sherman _was_ meant to help John?"

Sarah sighed again. "Maybe. I don't know. But we can't set him up as John's confidant if we don't know how he fits into Skynet's plans." Sarah shook her head. "And it can't be us."

"Why not us?"

"Because John doesn't think we want him better, he thinks we just want him functional."

"_I_ want him _better_." Cameron stressed without emotion.

Sarah blinked, noting something in the Girl Machine's voice. "Can you think of anyone then? Someone that's not involved in Skynet, but John'll talk to? Someone who'd be willing to take things about John's life on faith, without asking for details?"

Cameron tilted her head, considering. Sarah noted the gesture. It was Cameron's way of saying _'I'm thinking it over.'_

_***_

**Selection Criteria:**

_Pre-existing relationship._

_Demonstrated trust._

_Neutral wartime stance._

_Termination status: Unlikely._

_Obey security measures._

**Processing.**

**1 Match Found:** _Riley._

_***_

"No." Cameron said aloud. "Not that I can think of."

Sarah nodded slowly. "Then we better be damn sure of Sherman."

Derek came back in. He had cleaned up, changed clothes, and collected some car keys.

"I'm taking John for a drive."

"Why?" Cameron asked, before Sarah could.

"To see the one person who he'll listen to about this."

***

Cameron had insisted on coming. Derek allowed it, because it made it more likely that John would come along.

But when they got to their destination, Derek had pulled the car over.

John had spent the whole time in silence, looking out the window. "The Cemetery?" he asked Derek, as though he couldn't believe it had come to this.

Derek got out of the car, and both his passengers followed. When they got to the gate, Derek turned and put up his hand. "You aren't coming." He told Cameron.

"I'm staying with John." Cameron said.

John looked between the two of them, knowing full well they were about to kill each other over something as simple as who stood next to him.

"Cameron," John interjected. "Stay here, make sure nobody takes the car in case we need to leave fast. Don't worry, we'll be okay."

Cameron nodded, and sent a look at Derek. The message was clear. _'Anything that happens to him; happens to you, four fold.'_

Derek nodded, and led the way in.

***

"Why are we here?"

Derek watched each headstone as they passed. "We don't leave markers out in the future. We rarely get the chance to bury them, and we don't put up stones with names and dates. We don't want the machines looking at them, at where we leave our dead… besides…"

"There are too many of them?" John deadpanned.

"Right. There are places in LA, where the entire battlefield is covered in skeletons left from the first shockwave."

"Why are we here?" John repeated numbly.

Derek looked at his nephew, started checking off names as they passed the graves. "You've seen a lot of death. You ever ask about any of them?"

John nodded. "Sometimes."

Derek nodded. "I've seen a lot of death too. Met a Japanese soldier once, and he told me that his father believed that the spirits of his ancestors watched over his family. Protecting them, guiding them…"

"What do you think?"

Derek shrugged. "I saw the human race fight back. I saw the world end and then I saw people get back up again. I saw us racing extinction, and extinction had a head start on us. I don't know about guardian angels John, but I do know that I've asked plenty of questions of the dead and got answers from not-a-one of them."

John nodded. "So, why are we here?"

Derek pointed. "To see if you can do better."

John looked at the headstone they came to.

**Here lies, Kyle Reese.**

**No Fate But What We Make.**

John almost fell to his knees. There was no date of birth. He died before he was born. Before his brother was born. "Mom never told me…"

"Nobody claimed the body, he was cremated, but your mom put up a headstone here." Derek told him. "She told me where to go to find it."

John was crying. "Why?" he demanded. "Why would you bring me here?"

Derek looked at his nephew. "You think that this is an unfair burden. Like destiny decided to single you out for your pain."

John didn't speak. He didn't have to.

"Well I got news for you, I felt the same way. I was younger than you are now, and suddenly Judgment Day arrived. Suddenly the family was dead except for my brother. Just like everyone else on the Day After. We were alive. That's all that made us special. And my little brother, he didn't know what to do. And he expected me to give him the answer." He took a breath. "And I didn't have one."

John stared long and hard. He'd never heard Derek talk about this.

"It's not fair. Not on you, not on him. You haven't been singled out. You're just like all of us. Just like your father." Derek said. "I was drafted into the war, because I lived, and for no other reason. Just like you. Just like your dad, just like every other soldier. That, John, is your destiny. You didn't start this fire, and you didn't draft the human race into war. You're a survivor."

John finally looked up. "Is that enough?"

Derek was merciless. "It is for the rest of us. You aren't the Great John Connor kid, you're just like us."

John turned to face his father's marker, and ran a hand over the name.

"Yes." Derek confirmed. "Just like him."

***

Cameron was still there, holding vigil when they came out.

"Derek, can you give us a minute?"

Derek didn't like it, but left them alone, and went ahead to the car. "I'll see you at home."

John nodded.

Derek got in the car and drove away. One down, he thought. One to go.

***

Jesse studied her photos. The Great John Connor, was just a kid, on a playdate with the Metal. Even if it was a cute Metal, that was bent.

Jesse could picture it a hundred times over. Connor had sent how many thousands to a grisly end at the hands of those machines? And then he welcomed them into their bases.

Welcomed into their bases, and from these photos, who knew where else?

Cullie, Bird, Reese, Phillips, Anderson, Dyson… all of them dead.

John was in every photo, some with Derek, and some with Sarah, most with Cameron.

_Connor's a defector._ Jesse thought. _Spends more time with Metal than flesh and blood._

There was a knock at the door, and Jesse reached for a gun. She put the gun against the door and looked through the peephole, ready to shoot first…

It was Derek.

She opened the door, not really surprised to see him again.

***

It was a long walk home. They had spent a lot of their time like this. John rarely knew what to say, and Cameron didn't have anything to offer. There was no awkwardness to the silence, it was just their way.

Finally, Cameron spoke first. "After my malfunction, I told you that you couldn't be trusted. Because if you would take as foolish a risk as restarting me, without being sure, then you couldn't be trusted with deciding my mission."

"I _am_ your mission." John said. "Who _should_ make those decisions?"

"I have to protect you. Even from me."

Long silence as both considered what had been said.

Finally, John spoke. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Yes."

Beat.

"_Will_ you?"

"Yes."

"Mom didn't kill Sarkissian. I did."

Cameron's head tilted, just a little to the left. Her expression never changed, but John had learned to read the mechanical equivalents of emotion that Cameron displayed. She was processing this, and seemed to be getting worried.

"In the future, Skynet records battles." She said. "It recorded one fight, where a Tech-Com soldier opened fire before verifying his target, and killed one of his own unit. When he saw what he had done, he turned the weapon on himself." She looked at John. "Do you wish it was you?"

"No." John said honestly.

"Was he going to kill Sarah?"

"Yes."

"Do you wish it was Sarah?"

"Of course not."

"Then what else could you have done?"

Silence.

"I don't know." John said. "But I didn't like it. I didn't like the idea that it wouldn't be the last time. And I didn't like the idea that I could be…"

"More like me?" Cameron said. She was not upset. Never upset. But she was… disturbed. It was a new thought to add to her program. "I'm sorry." She said finally.

"For what?"

"For not being there to do your killing for you."

The way she phrased that nearly made John fall over.

Another long silence, neither of them looking at each other while they walked.

"The Terminator sent after Dr Sherman destroyed its own CPU. I've never met a machine that can commit suicide before." John said finally. "Don't think Derek did either."

"All Tech-Com soldiers are issued a suicide pill before going on Deep-Range missions, as a precaution against capture." Cameron told him. "I've never understood why. Now Skynet is doing it too, and I still don't understand why."

"Sure you do." John said. "It's why you told mom never to let me turn you on if you malfunction again."

"That's not because of me. It's because of you." Cameron insisted. "I've tried to decide what I would do in the other Terminator's place. I wouldn't destroy my chip. I can think of only one thing that would allow me to consider destroying myself without reason."

"What's that?"

"If I lost you."

Long beat.

"Really?" John said, as neutrally as he could.

"I'm not like you John. When my mission ends, so do I. If I killed you, that would end me. If I stood by and let something else kill you; that would end me. I was concerned that I had failed, and that whatever had gotten you, was just taking a little longer than a bullet to end your life."

"Maybe it might have. But I've seen lots of people die, and none of them wanted to. So if I'm going to die, it's not going to be because I want it. And everything else that can kill me? That's the stuff you _can_ protect me from."

Cameron seemed to process that. "I don't know if I can protect you from yourself."

"I know." John squeezed her hand. "You take care of me." He said softly. "You always have. You always will."

Cameron's expression did not change. But she squeezed his hand back gently.

"Let's go home."

***

End


	3. Chapter 3

_AN: Missing Scenes for Today is the Day pt2. Just a very short quick fic to fill in some conversations. Written in about an hour, so be merciful.  
_

* * *

John did not cry. He would not. One life. What was one when the whole world was at stake? He was John Connor. He couldn't go to pieces over one teenage girl. He would not cry for her.

The door to his room opened. John turned on his side, away from her. "Please go." He said softly.

"Were you in love with her?" Cameron asked.

John squeezed his eyes shut. "Go away."

"If you were, then it will help you to talk about-"

"Go! Away!" John repeated harshly.

Silence.

"I'm sorry for your loss." Cameron said.

"Can you feel 'sorry'?" John ground out bitingly.

"I feel."

"Cam…"

"I know it's hard to lose someone you love." Cameron persisted.

_She lied to you before John. Just like when she told you she loved you. _John squeezed his eyes shut, and fought his mother's voice away. "No you don't."

"I asked Sarah about it once. About what love was like."

"What did she say?"

"She said that when you love someone, you care more about them than you do about yourself."

Heavy silence.

Cameron spoke again. "When I told you that I-"

John looked at her then. "That's different. Your concern for me is a program. It's totally different." He said, with a touch of desperation to his voice. "It has to be."

"It I did have emotion, there would be nothing in my program to explain it, or describe it. And if it _was_ possible for me to have emotion." Cameron pressed on, undaunted. "_Any_ kind of emotion at all. In even the _smallest_ degree, then given my program and my mission, love for you would be the only thing I'd ever be able to-"

**"GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM!"** John screamed.

Cameron fell silent and the door opened again.

"Cameron." Sarah said firmly from the doorway. "Help me pack the weapons. It would be best to do it before the sun comes up."

Cameron rose and left the room.

John turned away from his mother. "How much of that did you hear?"

"All of it." Sarah confessed.

"Why'd you have to go and tell her that stuff?"

"Better me than you." Sarah said evenly. "Get some sleep if you can."

The door closed. John listened for the sound of footsteps.

The second they faded, then threw back the blanket. He was fully dressed underneath, and John slid his bedroom window open.

* * *

"Leave him alone." Sarah said.

Cameron looked back. "I was just…."

"I know." Sarah said. "Cameron, she's not even cold yet. Leave John alone."

"I have to-"

"No you don't. Not tonight. She's dead. You won. He's not going to go find some new girl before we move again, so will you just let him grieve? Don't suffocate him."

* * *

Derek and John sat side by side in the car. "I want to talk to you about the future." John said calmly.

"Yours?" Derek asked, expecting this eventually.

John shook his head. "Yours."

"I'm listening."

"Did mom ever tell you how I met Cameron? Not in the future, but how I met her here?"

"No." Derek answered.

"It was between attacks, and I had believed that there wouldn't be another. And I found this beautiful girl who just walked up and started talking to me. For a kid who's trained to be invisible in a crowded room, that's something special. For a guy like me, trying to convince mom we were safe, it was practically life changing… And then a day later, I watched her get shot four times in the chest by a machine." He swallowed. "She saved my life that day, and I just kept staring at the holes in her gut. And I hated her. Right then, just for a moment. Because it just proved the one thing I'd never say out loud, but couldn't stop thinking. Why else would anyone pay attention to me if they weren't from the future?" He swallowed thickly. "When I met Riley I thought that maybe this time it could have been different…"

Derek awkwardly patted his Nephew on the shoulder. "You're holding up okay."

"I've got people dying all around me Derek. You think I'm gonna lose it over one more? Derek, did you ever talk to Riley without the rest of us?"

Derek blinked. "No."

"Riley had a huge fight with her foster parents. Apparently she blew up at her dad, and started screaming about how nothing mattered, because it was nothing but bleached skeletons ahead for all of them."

Derek didn't answer.

"I didn't tell her anything. I can't believe mom or Cameron would. So is there anyone else from the future active in the area? Anyone you could think of?" His tone was pointed. He already knew the answers. "Anyone you hadn't told us about?"

Derek didn't answer.

John studied him. "You have a good poker face. But you don't use it unless you've got something to hide. What are you hiding Derek?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because whoever she is, she killed Riley. And it wasn't the first time they met."

Long silence.

"Of course, if you _had_ known about her, and you'd been actively hiding it from us, then you would be, in a way, responsible for the things she did. And if you were aware of her connection to Riley… I didn't say anything Derek. I figured it out, and I said nothing. I have to live with that. If you knew…" John looked down. "Derek, I'm afraid to ask."

"Maybe you should trust that instinct and not ask."

"I thought so." John admitted with sudden menace. "DAMMIT DEREK! WHY!?"

"You didn't send her. She told me that she'd deserted. Just wanted to enjoy the world until it ended. And I wanted to… if I had told you, you or your mom would have drafted her."

John's sudden anger faded just as fast. "Who is she?"

"Jesse Flores. Part of the Australian Naval remnant. She was a submariner." His jaw worked. "We were… _are_, lovers."

John nodded.

"What makes you think Jesse killed Riley?" Derek asked quietly.

"I went to the morgue and examined the body." John said evenly.

Derek felt his jaw drop. "You what?"

"I went and examined Riley." John's voice didn't even waver.

Derek looked at him. Just looked.

"What?" John said, annoyed.

"You really _are_ John Connor." Derek murmured. "So what makes you think…"

"Riley fought back. Fought back _hard_. There was blood under her nails, hair pulled out… Cameron wouldn't take half that long."

"Cameron have any new scrapes?"

"None."

"How about your mom?"

"Her either." John didn't as much as blink. His mom had been a suspect too. "What about Jesse?"

Derek hated to admit it, but the math said it was true. Jesse had killed Riley. "…Yeah."

"Derek…" John said quietly. "If Jesse came back without orders, then she brought Riley back, specifically for me." He turned to look his uncle in the eye. "Jesse sent an Infiltrator."

John could see the word register with his uncle. He could see the instinctive hatred and disgust that came with it.

"Why is she doing it Derek? Tell me everything you know. Tell me now."

Long deadly silence.

Finally, Derek spoke. "Cameron. Jesse says that Cameron is screwing things up for the resistance. Giving orders for you, running things, manipulating you…"

"You and mom are both convinced Cameron did it. If I was… that would be enough to make me kill her."

"Not _her_ John, _it_. You can't kill a machine."

Beat. For a second, Derek thought John was considering it.

"I know where Riley was going Derek. I followed her once I started to realize. Which room in that hotel is Jesse staying in Derek?" John asked darkly.

"How about; if I don't tell you?" Derek responded carefully.

"Then I'll find out anyway, by asking the staff. I'm not going to kill her." John promised.

Derek waited.

"I'm not sending Cameron either."

"John… if there was any chance that…"

"I don't know how much Jesse knows." John interrupted. "So I need you to keep this away from her while I'm there." And he handed Derek the watch.

Derek opened it and looked at the button. "What's this?"

"That watch detonates a small charge implanted in Cameron's head next to her chip."

Derek's hand closed convulsively around it. "And you're giving it to me?!" He grinned.

John glared at him. "You're not in enough trouble?"

"I suppose I am."

"Cameron saves my life. Riley seduces me to manipulate me. Jesse does the same to you. I don't claim to be acting too smart lately, but can we be on the same side here, just this once, just about this please?" John looked hard at his uncle. "She played us both Derek, and she killed Riley."

Derek's face hardened, until he was Lt Reese, 132nd Tech-Com again. "Yes sir."

"You can keep this until I get back." John said evenly. "As long as you don't use it. Just to keep Cameron out of that room."

"Where _is _Cameron?"

"At home."

***

Jesse came into the hotel room, still smelling of chlorine.

"If you pretend not to know who I am, I may just shoot you in the head."

Jesse spun. There he was. Supreme General John Connor. _Holy god, the General himself._

She had seen Him before, gotten daily updates from Riley on everything from the way He liked His food, to the things He mumbled in His sleep.

But for the first time, He was in her presence; and Jesse felt a thrill of horror go through her.

Riley had felt such stage fright when she'd first seen Him. She'd come running to Jesse many times, terrified at the scope of what they were achieving. Seducing The General was a big task. Actively trying to manipulate Him was defying the right hand of the most vengeful gods.

Plus Cameron lived with the Connor family.

She let that thought harden her. "You're John Connor."

* * *

Ten minutes later, with the conversation done, John calmly stalked away from the hotel.

Derek was waiting. "So, does she live, or does she die?"

"What would Future John do?"

"Shoot her dead." Derek said without mercy or hesitation. "Jesse called it Rule 303. The caliber of the rifle used in old executions for treason."

"And you Derek? Will you carry out Rule 303?" John asked.

"If she were anybody else…" Derek shivered. "John, you know that Cameron lives her life under orders from future commanders too."

"She doesn't have a choice in the matter."

"Neither do you."

That landed. Derek could see John twitch at that. He turned to leave again.

"John, I'm sorry."

John paused but did not answer.

"If I had said something, Riley might still be alive. I might have been able to save her."

"Me too." John said quietly. "If I have to live with it, so does Jesse. I'm going home."

Derek handed him the watch, and the two of them parted company.

Derek just watched him go, ran the night through his head, and calmly pulled out his cell phone.

* * *

Jesse cat walked toward the stairs, when her cell phone rang. Acting against her every instinct, she answered it. "Hello?"

"It's me." Two tones followed.

Jesse returned the code. "Derek, did you…"

"I did not. He figured it out. He's still John Connor Jess."

"He is." Jesse shivered.

"He let you go?"

"For now." Jesse answered.

Derek didn't have to say it. They both knew. Those who declared war on John Connor lost.

"And you?"

"ME?!" Derek snapped. "What the hell did you think I would say?! I told you he was my nephew. You have any idea how big a gamble that is?! I told you, and you sent Riley…"

"It didn't work Derek." Jesse whispered brokenly. "I asked him. Even if he had fallen for it, he would have kept the metal with him. He told me so."

"Of course he did! He's horrified how close he came to killing her. He's _apologizing_ for ever doubting her!" Derek roared. "And you know why? John's been hanging on to his relationship with Riley because she wasn't a machine. And he's been keeping himself from the machine because he knew one day he'd have to kill her. Now he has a glimpse of the future that has Cameron in it, and Riley's dead, what's holding them apart any more?"

Jesse stopped walking, feeling like she'd been kicked in the gut. "I did it Derek. Do you understand?! _I'm_ the reason he trusts her so much! _I_ drove them closer together."

"Time travel. It is a bitch ain't it?"

"How can you be so _calm_ about this?" Jesse demanded, walking faster. "You want that thing to start calling you 'Uncle Derek' one day?!"

"I've got a bigger problem than that right now."

"What?" Jesse started getting paranoid.

"You." Derek said flatly. "Jesse, I asked you how many times to tell me your plan? And every time I did, you got me to change the subject by getting me into bed. I love you, so I didn't force the issue." Derek's voice was stone cold dead. "But Jesse, you sent an _infiltrator_ after John Connor."

Jesse missed a step just hearing the word. She fought to catch her breath, which had suddenly vanished from her lungs. "Derek?"

"That's treason." Derek snarled. "Mutiny at _least_. If you tried this during the war, you'd have been put against the nearest wall."

"He's not our General yet!" She pleaded.

"He's still John Connor."

The line disconnected, and Jesse ran down the stairs.

She made it halfway to her car, where Derek was waiting for her.

* * *

John let himself in quietly, and took a look around the room, knowing that it would be the last time they called this house home.

Cameron was standing in the hallway. John got the feeling that she was just waiting there for him all night.

"Do you remember how we met?" John asked softly. "Not in the future, but you and me?"

"Yes."

John sighed, and scrubbed his face with his hands. He went into the living room and sat down, exhausted.

Cameron came in and stood in front of him.

"Thank you for believing me." Cameron said. "About Riley."

"I almost didn't. You have lied to me before."

"I know." Cameron said. "But not about this."

John nodded, still not looking at her.

Cameron raised her hand and touched his face gently. "I'm sorry for your loss."

John still wouldn't look at her, and she turned to leave.

"Cameron?" John called.

Silence.

"When I asked you, if my future self knew things you didn't… I was asking… if I would hide things from you. If I had reason to. Would you be… would you do anything against me, or the soldiers, or the fight against Skynet…?"

"Yes." Cameron said bluntly. "If I could protect you, I would hinder the war effort. If the war put you in any danger, I would manipulate you to make choices that would protect you personally, regardless of the impact on others."

"Have to think about that one for a while." John whispered. "It's the wrong way to run a war."

"That's why you have the watch." Cameron countered. "You don't need to send me away from you. You can protect yourself." She reached out and took his hand intensely. "You don't need to send me away from you."

"Well." John said softly. "At least I learned one thing for sure now."

"What's that?" Cameron asked.

"In the future, you'll still be with me." John said.

Cameron looked at him. "Always?"

"Yeah."

Sarah came in and noted the intense scene going on, and sat down, putting John between the two of them.

Long silence, the three of them just sitting there, not looking at each other.

John suddenly started to cry.

Sarah pulled him over, and hugged him tight as he broke down sobbing.

Cameron did not move, did not touch either of them. Her expression never changed, but she recorded every movement that Sarah made with great care.

Because this was not going to be the last time this happened, and Sarah would not be there every time, to hold his head in her lap, and stroke his hair gently while he mourned.

Cameron would.

* * *

_AN: It's getting increasingly harder to keep this story in Canon. Read and Review!_


	4. Chapter 4

**Fugitive Sarah Connor Arrested In LA.**

John watched as his mother was dragged away on the television. So, he was alone now. Just him and Cameron.

Cameron had already taken in the TV, and was already looking the other way, scanning the street for threats. It was her way. Always keeping watch.

The thought that she was going to leave him with Charley had been wrenching. His mom had been strangling him with her protection since as long as he could remember, with the one exception of the years she spent in the nuthouse…

And she was going to leave him alone with Charley, the man she had dragged him away from kicking and screaming.

Why did it feel so much like when he was ten years old?

"We need a place." John said numbly.

Cameron nodded and led them to the nearest car. She ripped off the license-plate, turned it upside down and put it back, forcing the bent screws through the plate metal.

She smashed the window open on the driver's side, in a move that the last Terminator bodyguard had used, she smashed the steering column open and turned the ignition with pneumatic fingers.

She reached over and unlocked the passenger side for John.

John smirked. Cameron wouldn't let glass shards cover his seat like they did hers. Might hurt him.

A bitter chuckle at the gesture came out despite himself.

_John Connor,_ he told himself. _You're the only one left. What do you do general?_

_Kill John Henry._ The answer was obvious. John Henry was the one AI they were sure of, and Ellison had to know what his mother would do when she found out about him. Now his mother was in jail as a direct result of trusting him.

His mother would tell him what she'd told him when Cromartie first appeared. What she'd old him when he'd rescued her from Pescadero, what she'd told him when Derek…

_Keep moving. Do what you're trained to do. You run. Keep moving. You're too important._

Cameron found them a place. Another nameless nothing building, that had been long abandoned and left to itself.

There was a man eating out of a tin of tuna over a barrel fire. He glanced over as Cameron kicked the door open. He looked her over appreciatively. "Hey-"

John pulled out a gun before he could finish his first word. "Whoever you are, run away very fast."

The man saw the gun, his eyes got very big, and he bolted for the door.

Cameron quickly barricaded the door behind him, began searching the building quickly. John took in the man's campsite. Empty tins of food, dirty sleeping bag, fire barrell with a crate in front of it for a chair.

John collapsed onto the crate, and warmed his hands over the fire.

Night deepened outside, and Cameron kept moving, back and forth across the open room, from the window to the shattered door.

"How'd you know about this place?" John called over to her.

"I don't sleep." Cameron called back.

John pulled out a piece of paper, and started writing.

Sarah Anne Connor

Sarah Elizabeth Connor

Sarah Irene Connor

Ginger Ventura

Matt Buchanan

Detective Ed Traxler

Detective Hal Vukovich

Kyle Reese

Todd Voight

Janel Voight

Miles Dyson

Mr Fergeson

George Lazlo

Michelle Dixon

Riley Dawson

Jesse Flores

Charley Dixon

Derek Reese

_Everybody dies for you John. _

John squeezed his eyes shut against Derek's voice.

_I'm probably forgetting a few._ John thought, drawing little skulls and crossbones next to each name.

John folded up the page and tossed it into the fire barrel, as Cameron came over. She watched the page burn away to nothing with him.

"Ashes to ashes." Cameron said. "Dust to dust." She looked at John. "That's what they say, when you die you go back to the ground."

John nodded numbly.

Cameron seemed troubled by that, and held her hand out over the fire. "What do I go to?"

He reached out and took her hand away from the fire, holding it in his. "Why does it matter?"

"Cromartie is dead. We destroyed his chip. But his body walks and talks and thinks…"

John shut his eyes. He really wasn't in the mood.

"You should sleep." Cameron said.

"If I do, what will you do?" John asked quietly. Would she go hunting? Would she go get him food? Would she stare at him while he slept?

"Some must watch while some must sleep." Cameron intoned. "I don't sleep."

John nodded, and kicked the homeless man's sleeping bag open. "Just you and me now." He whispered.

"You knew it would come down to us eventually." Cameron said quietly.

And despite himself, John smiled. He did. He knew eventually they would be the only ones left. He always survived in place of someone around him, and Cameron was the hardest to kill. It stood to reason they'd be the only ones left. He had no tears for Derek. he had sobbed for Riley, and spent the entire time he was on the boat sobbing for Charley... he had none left. Not even for his uncle.

When he realized Derek was his uncle, he had dreaded the inevitable question: How could you send your own father back,knowing he would die doing it?

But the question never came. and after a while, John realized the answer was a good bit simpler than time paradoxes.

Kyle, Derek, Charley, the last Terminator bodyguard... he sent all his father's to their deaths. That was what he did.

Somehow, sleep came easily.

'_You're Already dead Silberman, everyone here dies, you know I believe it so don't %&# with me!'_

John woke up. Him mom had made that case during her own escape from the Mental Hospital. Riley had believed it too. So did Jesse, so did Derek.

He felt hands on him, he felt warmth under him.

His head was in Cameron's lap, she was stroking his hair.

John threw back the sleeping bag very very quickly, and tried to sit up. The Girl Machine was sitting at a ninety degree angle with her legs flat on the floor. An impossible posture for a human.

Cameron forced him back down gently. "In the future, you did this a lot, for a girl named Allison."

"Allison?" John shut his eyes again, letting himself settle under her touch, too strung out to care. He knew that name…

"She was a young resistance fighter. You liked her. So when we captured her, they made me in her image. So that I could get close to you."

John settled, having never heard this. "You're wearing someone else's face?"

"When I went into your base, you knew I was different right away, and captured me easily. I didn't understand why. I did not understand your fascination with an orphaned girl a third your age either."

"Now you know." John told her. "I'll never forget your face."

"You did this with Savannah." Cameron said. It was not a question. "To help her sleep. And Sarah did it for you, when Riley died."

John opened his eyes and stared up at her. She was something ethereal in the moonlight and glow from the embers. If his mother had been there, she would have kept Cameron patrolling instead of being this close…

John sat up sharply, resisting her attempts to push him back. "How long did I sleep?"

"Three hours fourteen minutes."

"Long enough."

'The human body requires at least-"

"Long enough."

"What do you want to do now then?" Cameron asked.

John got up off the floor and sat down on the crate, trying to resurrect the fire.

Cameron stood and came over to his side, saying nothing.

After a while, the fire was going again, and john stared into the flames for a while. "What happened to Allison?" He asked finally.

"I killed her." Cameron said plainly.

_Allison._ John told himself. _Another name for the list._

"We worked very hard on the hair." Cameron said. "It's the hardest thing to get right." She reached out, quick as a rattlesnake and took his hand, forcing him to run his fingers through her hair. "Do you still like it?"

John stared at her. Was she just waiting for this? No Sarah, nor Derek, no Riley, no Charley… No chaperone at all…

"Do you know how dangerous you are?" John asked Cameron quietly.

"Yes." Cameron said plainly.

"No, I don't think you do. When we first met, you nearly killed me with a smile." John said. "So imagine how scary it is to me, when I tell you that right now, I am so much more dangerous than you."

"How?"

"I'm the one left in charge."

"You always were."

"Cameron, I have an order for you. I want you to follow it exactly."

"Understood."

"Get mom back. However you have to. By any means necessary."

"Understood."

"Kill James Ellison. Do it for me. Do it for my mom. And then, I want you to kill John Henry. Kill anyone who tries to stop you. Kill anyone who might rebuild it."

Cameron stared at him, his hand was still in hers, fingers threading through her raven hair. "You've never given that order before."

"If I had, maybe mom would still be with us."

"Almost certainly."

John had tears streaming down his face. "You go kill them all for me." He hissed. "I'm coming with you. Time to go to war."

Cameron did not let go of his hand as John stood up. She only let him go to pick up the guns.

John led the way out of the building into the night.

* * *

_AN: Okay, so maybe a little out of character for John, but face it, the kid's toughening up, and the counter-attack seems the next move. Read and Review_


	5. Cold Cold Heart

_AN: I don't know what to say right now, and I'm processing on the Season Finale. This was written inside five minutes._

* * *

Why did it feel so much like when he'd taken her chip out?

He was sitting on top of her then too, cutting into her perfect skin. Admittedly, his uncle and mother were there…

Derek…

John shook that thought away. Derek would have had a stroke at what happened in that bed this morning.

"_She's not human. She doesn't have a soul, and she never will."_

He'd said that, but he didn't really mean it. She had a soul. He held it in his hand. What was a human soul made from that it had greater value?

She didn't have a heart either. She had a reactor. Not a soul, software. Not a heart, a reactor. Not a skeleton, coltan steel.

Just keep telling yourself that John.

And no matter how much you need her, no matter how real she felt…

Her face never changed when he'd cut into her head. Her voice never shifted since he'd known what she was. Any topic, art history, music, war, tactics, family… never once did anything about her change.

…except for the one time she was screaming that she loved him…

_This is why Riley._ He said silently to her. _This is why you and Cameron never really competed. If I shot her right now, if I kissed her right now, none of it would change anything. Her face was made with that expression, and it will never change, no matter what goes on beneath it._

He'd been bowed over her naked body tonight, wrist deep beneath her skin, holding her heart in his hand.

It had felt so cold.

* * *

Time travel was as he remembered it. The first thing he noticed was the smell. The air smelled of fire and decay, and john knew he had gone forward. John Henry had taken Cameron home.

Derek… Kyle…

John knew he should feel happy when he saw them, but the truth was, there was nothing but the crushing unholy guilt. He had removed himself from the timeline, and the end result was that all these people he had loved were still alive. Deep down, he knew that was how it had to be. All he had to do was remove himself from the world, and all the souls that he loved would be safe.

Including her.

She still didn't smile at him.

She was whole, she was beautiful, she was standing next to half a dozen human soldiers, and a K-9.

The dog wasn't barking. That was the clincher.

But she still didn't smile at him.

* * *

_AN: Again, only five minutes work. Be gentle._


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